TVL Spends £10M in 2 Years Sending 100K Letters a Day

[Teddy Bear]

There was a story in the news a few days ago that one couple who actually had a licence kept receiving threatening letters from TVL, and despite notifying them several times that they already had a valid licence the letters continued to come.

There will be many more in the same situation who don't bother reporting it to the media. Which would account in part for this massive spend on letters by TVL, the equivalent of 70,000 licence fees.

Any wonder that despite having 140 in-house staff working on public relations, the BBC still finds it necessary to spend a further £35,000 outsourcing to private PR companies?

When will the vile madness that is the BBC end?

BBC sends out 100,000 TV licence letters A DAY...that's nearly every household in the UK in two years

• The BBC sent almost 46 million enforcement letters in the last two years
• At 20p per letter, the minimum cost over the two years is nearly £10 million, equivalent to the licence fee paid by 70,000 homes
• Last year the number of cautions and convictions for failure to pay the TV licence fell to 153,369
• Andrew Bridgen, the Tory MP, said the BBC was too 'heavy handed'

By Thomas Burrows For Mailonline

The BBC has been criticised for spending £10 million on enforcement letters to nearly every household in Britain - even though only five per cent dodge the payment.

A freedom of information request revealed that almost 100,000 letters were sent every day demanding payment of the licence fee.

MPs and campaigners attacked the corporation for their 'heavy-handed' approach.

Despite the fact that only five per cent of the 26.4 million households in Britain evade the payment, 46 million letters were still sent out by TV Licensing in the past two years, according to The Times newspaper.

At 20p per letter, the minimum cost over the two years is nearly £10 million, equivalent to the licence fee paid by 70,000 homes.

Last year the number of cautions and convictions for failure to pay the TV licence fell to 153,369. Between 50 and 60 people are jailed each year for not paying the fine.

HISTORY OF THE LICENCE FEE

The first licence fee was issued in November 1922 for radio users, and cost a princely 10 shillings (50p).

The first combined Radio/TV licence - for £2 - was issued in June 1946.

As television became popular, radio-only licences were abolished in February 1971.

The first supplementary licence fee for colour TV was introduced in January 1968.

The original iPlayer service was launched as a five-month trial in October 2005, with 5,000 broadband users testing it.

It was then gradually rolled out and made available to more people across the UK until in 2011 an international version was launched.

A television licence is not needed to watch iPlayer content after it has been broadcast.

The latest revelations put more pressure on the BBC after it emerged last month that more than half the public think the TV licence fee should be scrapped and the corporation forced to find new ways to fund itself.

John O'Connell, Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, told MailOnline: 'The number of warning letters sent out on taxpayers' money seems entirely disproportionate to the number of people failing to pay the licence fee.

'More people would be able to pay the outdated licence fee more easily if the BBC could cut out waste and charge people less in the first place. The licence fee model as it stands is out of date and needs a serious overhaul.'

The number of people who have legally opted out of the charge has risen by almost 40,000 in the past two years, prompting claims the corporation is struggling to adapt to the internet age.

Mark Wallace, executive editor of ConservativeHome, said: 'The BBC licence fee is out of step with the modern world, sending more demand letters won't prevent its inevitable decline. Time to axe the TV tax.'

Editor of the Spectator magazine Fraser Nelson tweeted: '‏BBC sends 100,000 enforcement letters per day and courts filled with its victims, time to admit license fee model outdated and immoral?'

Andrew Bridgen, the Tory MP for North West Leicestershire who led a campaign by fellow backbenchers to remove criminal penalties for evading the fee, said: 'I think the heavy-handed way in which the BBC tries to collect the licence fee underlines the divide which has developed between the corporation and the people who fund it.

The BBC argues that the licence fee remains the best funding mechanism and is expected to push for an increase in the £145.50 levy in negotiations about renewal of its royal charter in 2016.

It will also argue for a loophole that allows viewers to watch its shows online on the iPlayer catch-up service without a TV licence to be closed.

A TV Licensing spokesman said: 'It's only right we do everything we can to ensure people buy a licence, and letters are a cost-effective way to get people to pay. We use letters where we don't have email addresses.

'Thanks to the effectiveness of licence fee collection, an additional £25million was available to spend on BBC content in 2013-14 and the cost of collecting the licence fee was the lowest to date at just 2.7p for every £1 collected.

'The low cost of collection - 2.7p in for every pound collected - and low evasion at between 5 and 6 per cent is evidence that what we do works, so to describe it as waste is simply wrong.'

WHO NEEDS A TV LICENCE?

Anyone watching or recording TV programmes on any channel as they are being broadcast. Whatever device you use to watch programmes – a TV set, computer, laptop or mobile phone – you must pay the £145.50 licence fee. Over-75s are entitled to a free licence. Anyone without a valid licence risks prosecution and a fine of up to £1,000.

WHAT CAN YOU WATCH WITHOUT ONE?

Programmes on the iPlayer, the BBC's catch-up service, provided you view them after they have been broadcast. Those using the iPlayer's Watch Live function, which broadcasts eight channels at virtually the same time as on TV, will need a licence.

HOW CAN BBC TELL WHO WATCHES LIVE OR CATCH-TV?

It can't. It relies on honesty. Anyone not paying a licence fee has to submit a declaration that they are not watching or recording live broadcasts. Licence enforcers can make house visits to check and if your explanation is accepted, they put your account on 'hold' for two years, before investigating again.

Licence enforcers can make house visits to check and if your explanation is accepted, they put your account on 'hold' for two years, before investigating again.

Just to clarify, TVL agents have no more rights than a door to door salesman, and one DOES NOT have to give them ANY explanation. Just tell them to leave your property, and that if they persist in bothering you, you will sue for harassment. You can back it up with a letter to TVL to the effect that you don't watch live TV and do not wish to have any of their agents harassing you on your property. So long as they cannot see if you watch live TV there's NOTHING they can do. The best for the country would be to see the BBC privatised and watch them sink - like they truly deserve. A CANCER ON OUR SOCIETY!

[charmbrights]

FACT - TVL is actually sub-contracted to Capita - see my comments on their efficiency elsewhere.

[Teddy Bear]

Or as some call it - Crapita

[Teddy Bear]

When a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official calls for the licence fee to be axed, you know people are getting fed up with this organisation, whatever their bias.

This BBC protection racket should be shut down
By Dan Hodges

Imagine a fictitious country. Let’s call it Beebossia. It’s one of those small, eastern European states just off the Scandinavian coastline.
Beebossia suffers a coup. Nothing too violent, not many dead. A military dictatorship takes over. It announces the establishment of a state broadcaster. It will be controlled by a committee appointed by the military authorities. It will be funded by those authorities, and operate on the basis of a charter they have drawn up.

The world would be outraged. It wouldn’t actually do anything. But there would be the odd protest, and a fair bit of tutting.

Then, joy of joys, there is a counter-coup. The Beebossian Spring. The military are overthrown and replaced by a new democratic government. The people celebrate. Then, a few days later, men start arriving at their doors. “A new law has been passed,” they inform them. “You know how you used to have to have a licence to drive a car? Or own a gun? I’m afraid you now also need a licence to watch The Great Beebossian Bake-Off.” The people laugh. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” say the men at the door. “We may have to throw you in jail.”

You live in a Beebossia. Your state has its own broadcast network, the BBC. Indeed, it’s the largest broadcaster in the land. The state selects the board of that network. It funds it. It controls the terms of its operations. It appoints its Director General.

It also demands we obtain a licence to watch its services. And it levies an annual tax on us if we wish to keep that licence. If we don’t pay that licence we may be sent to jail. In fact, last year more than 50 of us were.

The authorities actively harass its citizens in pursuit of those licences. Yesterday it was reported that the BBC sends out 100,000 “enforcement letters” a day, at an annual cost of £5 million. What’s more, it’s had to pay out over £100,000 in “goodwill payments” to people who had complained of harassment. It also emerged that the corporation has received payments from people who already had a licence, but made the payment just to prevent further persecution. The BBC has literally been demanding money with menaces.

Time and again the debate about the licence fee rears its head. Time and again the response is the same: “We wouldn’t start from here. But if it isn’t broken, why fix it?”

It is broken. Take the BBC’s vaunted independence. It isn’t independent. We know this because each time the licence fee comes up for review – or as is currently taking place, Charter Review – the BBC’s liberal defenders rush into print to warn about how politicians are using these reviews to try to bend the BBC to their will.

Which they are. Last year Grant Shapps was doing the strong-arming, with a warning that the BBC would face a licence fee cuts unless it “rebuilds trust”. But those same liberal BBC defenders never draw the logical conclusion. Which is, that given that you can’t ask politicians to stop being politicians, the only way to stop them manipulating the licence fee for political ends is to do away with the licence fee.

The other favoured argument is that the licence fee “represents fantastic value for money”. It doesn’t. That may have held sway 30 years ago when 28 million of us used to settle down together to watch The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special. But now our viewing habits are much more diverse. Satellite, box sets, the internet. My wife and I worked out that over the past 12 months the only BBC TV output we have regularly watched is Strictly Come Dancing. Which is a troubling admission on several levels.

The amount of BBC output we as a nation absorb is steadily declining. So by definition, the value of the licence fee is itself being eroded.
The final great fallacy is the licence fee as guarantor of quality. Safe from the pressures of “commercialism”, the BBC is supposedly free to produce blue chip output. But it doesn’t. In sport, drama, light entertainment and comedy, the BBC can’t compete. Idris Elba, paraded by the BBC after his recent appearances in Luther, had to go to the States to make his name. HBO offered him the iconic part of Stringer Bell in The Wire; the BBC used him as a parachute instructor on 2point4 children.

And why can’t the BBC compete on quality? Because it can’t compete commercially. And why can’t it compete commercially? Because it is constrained both by its funding regime and its requirement to produce “national” output.

The licence fee is no longer the BBC’s cash cow. It is its straitjacket. A funding model that in reality would shame an eastern European dictatorship. And when the BBC is having to act like its running a protection racket to even collect that fee, the time has come to axe it.